abandonware games sorted by popularity

No relation to Dune (except for being a total rip-off), Arrakis is a homebrew strategy game that feels like a tribute to the sandiest planet in sci-fi. You mine spice, fight vaguel...

Ah, Championship Manager 93, the game that taught us yelling at pixels is a valid emotional outlet. It's you, a keyboard, and a list of players with stamina ratings. No fancy graph...

Zangband is a variant of the popular roguelike game Angband. Zangband, short for Zelazny Angband, was developed by Chris Weisiger and first released in 1994. The game features...

Yes, it’s that Beethoven—the slobbery St. Bernard, not the piano guy. In Beethoven 2, you control a surprisingly agile dog on a quest to rescue your kidnapped puppies. ...

Ah yes, the golden age of video games: where catching babies yeeted from burning buildings was a fun pastime. In Bouncing Babies, you play as a heroic volunteer with a trampoline, ...

Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos continues the adventures of Ryu Hayabusa with even more enemies, more danger, and a title that makes it very clear that the sword situation ...

Cossacks: Back to War expands the large-scale real-time strategy formula of the Cossacks series with additional factions, campaigns, and battles inspired by European warfare. Huge ...

Voodoo Island is a classic adventure that sends the player into a mysterious tropical setting filled with strange events, dangerous situations, and the obligatory feeling that stay...

Sherlock Holmes: The Vatican Cameos is a 1986 DOS adventure built around a Sherlock Holmes mystery and the detective's trademark combination of observation, deduction, and careful ...

Quandaries is a 1997 DOS puzzle game that lives up to its name by presenting players with problems that require thought, experimentation, and occasionally the uncomfortable realiza...

Time to hit the lanes in 10th Frame, a bowling simulator so committed to realism it even simulates the wait between turns. You line up your shot, set your spin, and pray the ancien...

Project Neptune is a 1989 DOS strategy game that takes players into a futuristic underwater conflict where careful planning is the key to victory. Players command forces in a scien...

Silverball is a 1993 DOS pinball game that brings several virtual tables to the computer screen, offering players the familiar combination of flippers, bumpers, ramps, targets, and...

Wizball is a wonderfully strange arcade game built around a simple but unusual mission: restore color to a world that has apparently decided that monochrome is fashionable. You con...

The Astronomy Quiz is a straightforward educational title aimed at players who enjoy looking toward the stars and then discovering how little they actually know about them. Release...

Released in 1988 for DOS, Feud is a wonderfully weird strategy game about two rival wizards who absolutely refuse to get along. Each turn, you gather resources, cast spells, and tr...

Terminal Terror throws you into a first-person maze filled with enemies and confusion, delivering a raw and somewhat chaotic shooter experience. The corridors feel endless, and the...

PrintMaster is a program that allows users to create a variety of print projects, such as greeting cards, banners, brochures, and more. It provides users with tools and templates t...

Dizzy the egg is back, and this time he’s underwater and floating up on bubbles because... sure, why not? Bubble Dizzy is a mix of patience, timing, and yelling “WHY DI...

For those who got hopelessly addicted to the card game inside Final Fantasy VIII, Triple Triad Gold (2000) was like someone saying, “Here, now you can ruin your productivity ...

Seek and Destroy is a 1996 DOS action game centered on military missions involving vehicles, weapons, and enemy targets. Players control combat equipment and move through dangerous...

Mech Commander: Gold (1999) is tactical perfection for fans of giant robots and careful planning. Set in the BattleTech universe, the game puts you in command of a mercenary squad ...

Part interactive novel, part point-and-click adventure, Daughter of Serpents (1992) is one of those games that makes you feel like you stumbled onto a forgotten pulp novel. Set in ...

Ever wondered what The Flintstones would look like if they got into illegal street racing? BC Racers is exactly that, with stone-age muscle cars, power-ups that make zero sense, an...

Strap in and squint at the horizon—Advanced Tactical Fighter 2 wants you to dogfight like it’s the Cold War and your joystick is a weapon of mass confusion. Released in...

Treasure Trap is the sort of game that understands the basic appeal of a good dungeon: there are treasures to find, dangers to avoid, and absolutely no sensible reason to keep goin...

Released in 1989, Legacy of the Ancients combines traditional role-playing mechanics with exploration, quests, and a surprisingly imaginative fantasy setting. Players recruit compa...

Dangerous Streets is a fighting game that clearly wanted to be the next Street Fighter—and instead became a cult oddity. The character roster is bizarre, the animations oddly...

Follow the Reader (1992, DOS) is an educational oddity that feels like a kindly librarian discovered the power of DOS and decided to make literacy a competitive sport. You guide wo...

Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned brings Gabriel Knight back for another wonderfully peculiar supernatural investigation, this time taking him to the Frenc...